A novel approach for taking into account the zero-point oscillations in calculating heavy-ion fusion cross-sections

Abstract

Earlier in the literature it was shown that accounting for the zero-point oscillations (ZPO) of the shape of colliding atomic nuclei results in significant increasing of the calculated sub-barrier capture (fusion) crosssections. However, calculations of such kind were performed in a simplified way with the schematic nucleus– nucleus potential. The purpose of the present paper is to estimate in an accurate way the sub-barrier capture cross-sections in collisions between oxygen-16 and spherical nuclei with the realistic potential and to compare the calculated cross-sections with the experimental data. Nucleus-nucleus potential is obtained within the doublefolding model with Paris M3Y nucleon–nucleon effective forces. The nucleon densities are taken from the IAEA data base (they are calculated using the Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov method and approximated by two-parameter Fermi profile). The transmission coefficients are calculated within the WKB approximation below the Coulomb barrier and within parabolic barrier approximation above it. A novel approach for taking into account the ZPO without any fitting parameters is proposed. It is demonstrated that ignoring the ZPO results in underestimating the experimental data whereas accounting for ZPO improves the agreement of the calculated cross-sections with the experimental ones.